


The story of Adrastea, she who speaks the tongue of beasts, and the coeurl who shed his skin

by ertrunkener_Wassergeist



Series: Born Into the Wilds [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: F/M, Family History, Galahdian Culture (Final Fantasy XV), Galahdian Religion, Legends, Ulric Clan, Worldbuilding, some stories are truer than most
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 11:01:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18520132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ertrunkener_Wassergeist/pseuds/ertrunkener_Wassergeist
Summary: A legend told in Galahd about the Ulric Clan and how one of their ancestors is, in fact, a coeurl who became a human.





	The story of Adrastea, she who speaks the tongue of beasts, and the coeurl who shed his skin

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of an ongoing thing over on tumblr. Right now it exists mostly as this legend, one or two snippets and idea collections. I tought I'd publish it here too, to get myself to write more about it. It's part of my Nyx as a blue mage AU.
> 
> You can find it there under #born into the wilds verse

Come, come closer to the fire and let me tell you a story. Listen well for this is a story told to me by my mother and father, who were told by their mother and father back until the first people stepped on these islands and the world was young.

It was the Day of the Long Sun when Adrastea, she who speaks the tongue of beasts, walked into the forests surrounding her village. The shadows of the wild welcomed her like a dear friend as she greeted them as she walked by. Neither animal nor plant life ever harmed her for she never harmed them in return and so she walked the dangerous wilds without worry.

Not too far away, by a small rocky canyon, there lived a pack of coeurls. Great and powerful they were and greatly sought after for their white fur and beautiful winded horns. Many a hunter would dare to slay one of them, and so their pack stayed small despite their great power.

Thus, on this Day of the Long Sun Adrastea, she who speaks the tongue of beasts, walked the wilds until she came onto the home of the white coeurls and found, to her horrible realization, the skinned carcasses of a group of coeurls, adults and young. Adrastea, strong as any woman of the Galahdian people, shed bitter tears upon seeing this tragedy.

This group of mighty coeurls had been slain, not for the survival of a people who needed the meat to eat or needed the fur to stay warm in winter, but for sport and selfish gain. Adrastea, in her endless compassion for everything that lived, buried the bodies with all ceremonies worthy of them and as she put the last stone upon the last grave a roar sounded, full of hurt and anger and grief.

As Adrastea, with eyes as grey as the storms, looked up she saw a juvenile coeurl, not jet quite an adult with fur as white as Shivas purest snow and eyes as blue as the summer sky. He demanded to know what had happened and Adrastea, she who speaks the tongue of beasts, answered and the grieving son, brother, nephew and cousin swore vengeance upon those who had slain his kin without due cause.

“I know the pain of losing family,” said Adrastea with a coeurls rolling purr on her tongue, “and I will help you in any way I can if you will have me.”

“You do not know that which you are offering, speaker,” he said tail and great whiskers twitching.

“I do know very well what it is I am offering,” she answered and gazed fearlessly into his eyes.

The coeurl, last of his tribe, was impressed with her compassion and her respect for all things living and allowed her into this sacred act of a male and a female hunting. Together they followed the trail the greedy hunters had left in their carelessness and came upon a small group of people celebrating in the cool shadows of the forest, white furs hanging from the branches of the tree surrounding them.

“There are more than I thought there’d be. What do you want to do?” asked Adrastea, worry in her eyes grey as the storm.

“It matters not. I will kill them either way,” was the coeurls answer. “Why, do you have second thoughts, speaker?”

“Of course I don’t. I made you an offer and I will keep it as is the way of my people.”

“These over there, feasting over the skins of my kin, are of your people, too.”

“They ceased to be thus when they violated our sacred rule to never cause harm for selfish gain,” she answered and the coeurl studied her for a long time before nodding in acceptance.

“Then you will lure them beneath the trees where the shadows are deepest for that is where my kind hunts best.”

So she did and before the sun had wandered past its highest point in the sky everybody of the fated hunting party lay dead before the human and the animal. Adrastea, with eyes grey as the storm, gazed upon the carnage and walked away from it without a second glance for the hunters didn’t deserve any better for the crime they had committed.

The coeurl watched with a satisfied purr and blood marring its white muzzle and claws as the woman cleaned his kin’s skins with great the care they deserved. He had chosen well, he thought and when the sun set on this Long Day he took the knife the Wise Witch had given him and cut his own fur from his body.

From then on he lived his days with Adrastea, she who speaks the tongue of beasts, as a human for he had chosen him and he her. Together they would come to have five children and of them Nikon of Ulric would become the greatest, but that is a story for another time.


End file.
